1.) "His Carreneid Space Force identification file." - Hang on. Did this picture just pop up there when she stuck his ID into the computer (which is what it sounds like happened), or was there an alert out for him before (which would make a little more sense, although I don't know how they'd realize he was on the planet)? If you really meant the former, why would the fake ID cards tell them that? Either way, why would they be suspicious of him at all, since even HE didn't know he'd end up on this planet?

2.) "Though none of his sims at the Academy had featured high speed aircar chases, various games with his brothers and other local kids in abandoned old aircars had taught him a few tricks." - Hehe!

3.) " Why the hell are they so damn desperate to get me? It’s not like I know anything that could harm them!" - Precisely. Good job.

4.) "strapped a TouristGuide—a specifically designed kind of wristunit—onto his wrist" - I don't know if the description of what a TouristGuide is is really necessary. Unless he's going to use it later, it's description might just be clogging up the sentence.

Yea! Good chapter! :) Although if I was the guarda, I'd close the exits and look for him, still. Especially after he wrecked three cop cars! In any case, I'm glad to get back to Falnec - he's one of my favorite characters. Nice writing! -Ruatha

So far I like what I've read. In the last couple of chapters there have been less than a handful of grammatical errors. One somewhat minor problem i had was the use of the info dump about Fox being found by Beltino. Otherwise a solid couple of chapters.

1.) "“The guy who hired me told me to send a copy back to him so that Nakem could see it—to find out how much Dorian knew" - Whoa! WHAT? How is sending the disk to JAMES going to mean Nakem will see it? And why would James (or Trif) WANT Nakem to know how much Dorian knows? This line doesn't make sense as written, so please take a look!

2.) You know, I just realized: Didn't Trif go all ga-ga over Wil in the last chapter? You might want to either tone that down or else add a bit of that in here, because the two reactions are totally disjointed.

3.) Haven't any of the leaders even considered imprisoning Nakem now, regardless of the "proof" of charges? You've got a bunch of strong people (like Kaori) at the table, but none of them have mentioned it, which seems odd. Especially since they're ALL convinced that Nakem's going to start a war about 10 minutes after he leaves the Meetings.

Interesting chapter, though not my favorite. Ah well, I'll survive! Good work, and I'll be back later! -Ruatha

1.) "Sat on the edge of the cliff, her legs dangling over the long fall to the rock-studded sea below, Trifmara sang" - I've never in my life heard "sat" used as this type or verb. "perched" might work better.

2.) "For several years after waking up on the planet Teñeli at the age of eleven" - This is an excellent explanation. The only thing I'd suggest is to give it (or part of it) sooner, like back on Nhkotai.

3.) "She was determined so succeed" - Typo: "to"

4.) I don't really like the scene where she locks her memories away. Mostly it's just because I can't believe it's possible to consciously block out thoughts that you don't know about. It just seems kind of flimsy.

5.) "They will take several months to get to a good fighting standard, though, but the Alliance alone should be able to stand up against Nakem for at least that long" - the "though, but" seems redundant.

6.) "He looked at the Carreneid group and, if he was reading their body language correctly, he saw that Kaori and Ben were in a heated discussion against Lars Panthen" - I was surprised by this, since I thought everyone was still listening in. Not much time has passed since they all spoke together, and you didn't really say anything about anyone splitting off into groups.

Well, that was certainly startling! One wonders what would have happened had Trif gotten her act together and handed over the disk! Nicely done.

I'm going to go home now, so no more reading until next week, probably. Thanks again, and good luck writing! -Ruatha

1.) "No one had hinted that they know of Shaolin’s fate" - Typo: "knew"

2.) "Her focus had to be on the job not on someone’s backside" - Comma before "not".

3.) "For the second time in as many days, darkness overcame her and she collapsed to the floor." - Hehe. My first thought: "Wow! She's going to get kicked out of her job, and after only one day!" :)

4.) "a holographic visualisation of the only Artificial Intelligence that had ever been created" - Be careful with this phrase. Technically, anytime you play a game "against the computer", you're playing against an AI. You might want to say "the most complex AI ever created" instead, or something.

5.) "Nakem was preparing his economy for autarky" - "autarky"? That's the first time I've seen THAT word. Cool. Thanks for the vocab lesson! :)

6.) "Ben looked from Kaori to Lars to the other leaders..." - He never really answers Lars' question in this paragraph, you know. Take a look and see if you mean to make his answer sound that disjointed from the rest of the conversation.

7.) " It occurred to her that she could have given Wil the disk " - Precisely what I was thinking. How else is she planning to get the disk to him, from her position as a maid?

2.) "If things went to plan, she would soon find out." - Do you want to say "according to plan"?

3.) "Nodding, she sat down beside him " - Isn't it more likely that she'd shake her head, instead of nod, here?

4.) Trif doesn't know where Casey is from? That strikes me as odd, since they work so well together. Perhaps a bit of background here would be nice - explain WHY Trif doesn't know about his past, and what bits she DOES know.

5.) Interesting that Casey is so sensitive about his past and Oraulei. I'm assuming you'll get back to that later, so I won't bother pestering you for details! :)

6.) "Adapted to less humidity and lower altitudes than what it enjoyed on Earth" - The word "adapted" isn't quite right, here. "Designed to adapt" or something might be better, I thnk.

7.) "The heady aroma of cacao dominated the seafront. " - This little section seems pretty random. Is the fact that the island grows cacao, or Trif's dancing (which we've seen before) important to the storyline? If not, you might consider chopping this section. If you want to keep it, though, you might consider mentioning how much time has passed from the last section, what the party is for, and how she heard about it.

8.) " The central section was the tallest and thickest" - You might want to use "building" or "tower" instead of "section". At first, I thought you meant the middle section of each tower.

9.) "I definitely have to steal this dress when I leave" - HAHAHAHAHAHA!

10.) "blackness consumed her and she collapsed to the floor." - Whoa! Wait a sec! Is this from the dreams/visions/memories, or something else? Because it seemed like she was in control of them - at least in control enough to form a rational question ("Was it something to do with this mission?"). If they're bad enough to make her black out, wouldn't she be more frightened? She doesn't seem particularily scared to me, just a little confused and worried and very annoyed. Take a look at that, ok?

Nice chapter, though a bit dull. I know, sometimes you just have to cover some plot. :) I liked the way you showed them doing something blatantly immoral, and their acceptance of it. That's very realistic, and also makes them more imperfect characters.

You've spent a lot of time developing Trif as a character, but to me, Casey is still a black box. I don't just mean his past, either - even his personality is pretty fuzzy. I just thought I'd mention it, if you'd like to take it into account whenever you do the rewrite.

1.) "The royal family decided to start their society from scratch, going so far as to invent a new language and give everything, including themselves, new and elegant names." - This is cool, but I suspect it would have been mighty hard to teach people a new language when NO ONE knew it to begin with...

2.) "He had short salt-and-pepper hair, heavy on the salt" - Haha! Great line!

3.) "Except for Santini, all the gathered men had watched Ben launch himself across the Meeting room at Nakem in a furious rage, determined to exact revenge for Dorian Damano’s betrayal of James Nicessen and Gien de Maurey; Wil had attended the Meetings with his father since his tenth birthday, to learn the rules of diplomacy." - Whoa. First off, the two pieces of this sentence don't have much to do with each other, so you might consider spliting the sentence in half. More importantly, though, can you please remind us of when this happened? Because it sounds like it just happened yesterday, even though I suspect you mean in happened in 494. And remind me again how many years have passed since 494?

4.) "Does it shock you so much that Nakem would do such a thing,” Wil retorted" - Question mark!

5.) "for the same reason the message qualit deteriorated to its current state" - Typo: quality.

6.) "Deep in his heart, the General knew that nothing short of defeat would stop Emperor Nakem from waging war. But he had to at least try." - Good, practical sentiment.

I didn't have much to say about the end scene here. It was fine, although I didn't really know either character, so I couldn't get excited by it. Actually, the same thing is true about the begining section, though to a lesser degree. I'll be glad to see your "regular" characters again!

I've got a meeting in 10 minutes, so this is probably all for today for me. I'm getting there! Thanks again! -Ruatha

Hi again! I was busy actually WORKING yesterday, so I couldn't read, but today I've got the computer doing all my work, so I can relax a bit! :) Aerospace engineer computer babysitter. And so...

1.) "the rust-coloured earth that rapidly approached" - Ok, this is a space geek thing, but by "earth" you'd better be meaning "dirt" here and not "the planet"! It's a little iffy-sounding! ;)

2.) "A moment later, his first aid kit, survival kit and porta-comm stuffed into his flight suit and his parachute strapped to his back" - Nothing technically wrong here, but I'd add a "with" between "later" and "his", just to help the flow of words.

3.) "he was flung into the reddish-blue sky" - Why would the sky appear reddish? Our sky is blue because of the refraction of light around the atmosphere. Since any atmosphere breathable by humans must be about the same as our air, wouldn't their sky be blue, too (regardless of the color of rocks, etc, on the planet)? Wow... I really AM in an anal mood today.

4.) "Dry heat enveloped him almost instantly. He undid the top half of his one-piece flight suit" - His flight suit must be made to handle an open-space environment (at least for a little while), right? That means it should be able to protect him from extreme temperatures, like near absolute-zero in space. As such, he shouldn't feel the heat except where he exposes himself. By opening his jacket, he'll actually make himself HOTTER, at least in the short-run.

5.) "He took a hydra-crystal from his survival kit and dropped it into the remaining water" - Now that's a cool bit of technology!

6.) "his implant couldn’t find out where on the plane the was" - HE should have some clue, though, right? Just based on eyesight as he came down?

7.) "nothing in its movements suggested that it had seen his crashed Phoenix." - Wouldn't the planet's satellites have seen it, though? That doesn't mean THIS shuttle has to know anything about it, but if I saw a ship crash into my planet, I'd sure send my military to check it out, ASAP!

8.) "Minus his right foot." - Ouch! (I thought that when it happened to Fox, but this is even more ouch-like!)

9.) "Which meant waking up the youth" - You know, I just realized something. Aren't Falnec and Fox about the same age? Would Falnec really keep thinking of Fox as a "youth" then? Or is there a significant (visual) age difference, still?

11.) "in particular thoughts of what his fellow cadets would say if they saw him carrying another guy around like a damsel in distress" - Haha!

12.) Yea! A use for stem cell research! :)

13.) "If the shuttle that dropped Fox in the desert didn’t notice your Phoenix then hopefully the government will not become aware of your presence, so you should be able to leave without any problems." - I repeat my comment #7, which now appears to have some potential plot effects.

14.) "Falnec was only six months younger, they discovered" - Ah. Thank you!

15.) " The tall youth had a bad habit of slouching whenever he could and Beltino had to resist the urge to chide him." - Haha! This is an excellent little habit to show. Good characterization!

16.) "Falnec had proved to be an intelligent person to be around," - Either "have around" or else just delete "to be around" altogether, since it's really not needed.

Wonderful chapter! I'm glad to see you're introducing your characters to one another. It always makes life more interesting! :) Well done, as usual! -Ruatha

JaveHarron chapter 16 . 3/22/2006

One question: Could Falnec's pursuers look for him by scanning for prints or genetic materials in the aircar, then using security camera footage or try to match up biometric signatures (genes, etc)?

Wow, I just realized that I'd never added you to my favorites list. My bad. That mistake has now been remedied! ;)

1.) "A new shuttle, larger than most of the others, drew his attention and he raised his longoptic." - This is a picky, anal point, but he never actually put the longoptic down, so he doesn't need to raise it again.

2.) "Fox raised the zoom, trying to get a closer look." - Why does he need the satelites if he can see it from where he's standing? That seems quite a risk to take, if it's unnecessary.

3.) "earning himself a large collection grazes in the process" - First, I think you're missing an "of" before "grazes". But even with that, you'd be more likely to "earn a collection of scrapes and bruises" rather than "a collection of grazes", at least in my opinion.

4.) "his eyes fitted between the stability of the rock beneath his feet and the view ahead of him" - "flitted"

5.) "What he saw confirmed what the satellite footage had shown him." - How close is he to the inside of the camp, at this point? Is he looking across an open area, or straight down at the slaves? I don't have a good impression of where Fox is or what the surroundings are.

6.) "He could just about see the slaves and overseers that might catch a glimpse of him, and when they all looked in a different direction" - If he can see which way they're looking, then you don't need the "just about" at the start of the sentence.

7.) "a spike in adrenalin" - I think I said this in an earlier chapter, but you're switching randomly between "adrenalin" and "adrenaline" again.

8.) " allow him to remove one of the bottoms ones" - "bottom"

9.) "he was sat in one of those" - I know what you mean, but it's funny to think of someone BEING "sat" by another person. Maybe "forced" or "guided" would be more appropriate?

10.) "passing bright green grass and palm trees with a vigour that was far less obvious the scrub flora that Fox was used to" - Awkward and a bit confusing, especially around the word "vigour". Take a look, please.

11.) "He’d had no idea that Van Tonder had built his palace on the ruins of the old base" - Wouldn't he have known the location of the old base, and have noted that it matched up with V.T.'s new city (which Fox obviously knew about earlier)?

12.) "Åkerstedt, please see him into Zetkin’s care" - Doesn't Van Tonder have any questions of his own to ask Fox? Or anything else to say? That surprises me.

I hate my work. Or rather, it hates me. (Grr.) Thus I will read this instead!

1.) "for even a moment, for Casey was right-handed and Trifmara left-handed." - Nice detail!

2.) "In truth, she could just jump that high; she had no idea why she could do some things that no other people could." - I'm assuming that we'll figure this out by the end of the story? If so, cool! If not... you might want to think about giving an explanation for an otherwise unrealistic act.

3.) I'll be good and not comment on how big the power pack for that little cutting laser must be! After all, this is scifi, so you can get away with it! :)

4.) " No point telling the guarda that someone had broken into his home when he couldn’t admit to owning the things that had been stolen." - Wouldn't he want them to chase her, though? Surely they could contact the guarda on the streets, who would be able to catch Trif. He could always say he didn't know what she was after, then. Or that she was trying to PLANT the disk in his house, even.

5.) Just wondering, but wouldn't they want to drop off the disk and all of their not-so-typical equipment BEFORE going to party?

6.) Er... How can she read a coded document that not even a computer can decode. And without even thinking about it. That seems rather farfetched to me, I have to admit.

Good chapter, but be careful not to make Trif too amazing and all-powerful. The bit about the dance club brought her back down a little more towards "normal", after the super-high jumping scene, but then the instantaneous code-reading blew that out of the water. Watch out that you don't make her too good at what she does, or she'll get unrealistic.

Nice writing! Thanks! -Ruatha

JaveHarron chapter 15 . 3/19/2006

Okay, so the political storyline gets more interesting. How about Gien? Why did Trif spill her guts all of a sudden?

Oh, I am not happy with these events at all...I suppose that I shoudln't be, but I'll express my displeasure all the same. UGH! He's a lying SOB, and everyone knows it, so why can't they prove it? Why isn't it obvious that he's lying? Why does he have to be so blessedly SMUG?